Overwatch’s 27th hero is Torbjörn’s daughter, Brigitte

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We’ve had it teased on and off for the past few days, but it’s officially confirmed now: Brigitte Lindholm, Torbjörn’s eldest daughter, is going to be taking up flail and shield and wading out onto the increasingly crowded Overwatch front lines.

Within, we’ve got her official origin story, giving us a look at exactly who Brigitte is as a person, followed up by a developer update featuring director Jeff Kaplan detailing what exactly, she’ll be doing in the field.

We first saw her in Reinhardt’s backstory video, listening to the old rocket-knight’s tall tales. It turns out that she’s officially his squire, there to patch up his armor (and his frequently bludgeoned body) after battles. Now she’s decided to get on the battlefield to prevent some of those blows from landing in the first place, even if that does mean caving in a few heads with a bloody great rocket-boosted weapon.

You can see a little bit more of her backstory in this little bit from Blizzard’s lore archives. Apparently after saving Torbjorn’s life from the attack that took his arm, Reinhardt was promised the opportunity to name his short Swedish friend’s next kid, as well as being named godfather, so she’s very close to both of the beardy old gits, and has picked up both her dad’s knack for bashing things with a wrench to fix them, and Reinhardt’s love of breaking things with a hammer.

Mechanically, she’s a heavyweight support character, armed with a rocket-boosted flail and clad in armor similar to Reinhardt, although without the full-sized projection shield. Her flail extends outwards a bit while swinging, giving it more range than it might initially appear to have, and she has a special attack called Whip Shot which launches it out further still, knocking back enemies and doing extra damage.

She’s also kitted out with a big energy shield like her big buddy Reinhardt, but it’s less of a team-support wall and more of a personal defensive tool so that she can soak up a bit more hurt while saving someone else’s bacon using her Repair Pack, a ranged, semi-homing healing ability that can temporarily over-heal to a degree. If push comes to shove, she can shove back just as hard though – the shield comes with a Shield Bash skill that lunges in quickly, stunning whoever it hits, ideal to intercept light, harassing characters.

Her defining perk sounds like it lies in her very presence. Her passive Inspire ability is, in effect, a healing-over-time aura that activates whenever she’s out bashing heads on the front line. Her ultimate skill, Rally sounds the charge (blaring Germanic horns and all) and gives all nearby allies extra armor, and buffs Brigitte herself with increased movement speed, letting her rush in to bash even more heads. Her role, then, is very much the D&D Paladin, leading from the front, and potentially acting as the glue between an otherwise aggressive team and the Reinhardt that’s meant to be protecting them.

16 Comments

I like playing Tank and Support and it will be interesting to see how those roles hybridise, especially since she seems to heal by being a frontline brawler. Plus she has a rocket flail! Who could possibly resist?!

Too little too late. With them ruining the game and the e”sports” cancer eating away at the decisions the devs make and the mindset of what’s left of the community the game just isn’t worth playing anymore. And that’s on top of the low amount of content, primary focus on microtransactions (whose billions of USD a year don’t go into improving the game), what little content we had getting taken away, characters getting changed and broken every few months because of e”sports”, pitiful second year events, awful community, homophobic moderators, and lack of world building.

I really don’t have any stake in OW, I’ve hardly played it since launch, but one thing that really pushed me away was how uninteresting all of the characters are. I played TF2 for years and–in hindsight–I feel like the humor and personalities of the characters played a big role in bringing me back again and again. I watched all those “meet the” videos and read all those comics, but OW comics and cinematics are generally just painfully bland, putting some character I’ve never heard of in some emotional high-stakes situation I have no reason to care about. The half-assed world building actively deters me from the game. Of course, OW is more of a MOBA than a high-skill-ceiling FPS so I suppose it’s really not my bag, anyway.

I couldn’t disagree more with most of the points that you guys bring up. Overwatch is a wonderful, highly polished game that’s just oozing with character.

I have little interest in the OW comics, videos and stuff, but I’ll occasionally watch them. I’m not really sure what you expect from those; they’re not Pixar-level animated story telling, but I doubt any reasonable person would expect it.

OW has held my attention longer than any FPS outside of, maybe, the original Halo. I played a ton of TFC but didn’t really get into TF2. I’m a casual mid range platinum player that generally sticks to competitive games whether I’m playing solo or with friends above or below my skill level. The games are almost always interesting and fun.

It seems like a lot of folks dump on OW because of it’s popularity or Blizzard’s. The community is the same as any online community and isn’t particularly toxic when you’re a team player in this team game – the only real negativity that I see is when players refuse to cooperate, which, from my experience, are usually the same players that complain about the community. Go figure.

Eh. I like the game as it is. It’s pretty well balanced with only a couple of weak or very special case characters. The Mercy meta was awful and lasted too long, but it’s been pretty decent otherwise. If Blizzard is rabidly homophobic, they have been doing a good job at hiding it in their multi cultural rainbow cast in Overwatch. As for micro transactions, that are literally all cosmetic. I’ll lose no sleep over the have that the are employing a pile of artist to make skins and stuff. It has literally no effect on the game play and I have paid exactly zero dollars for skins.

As for esports, I, uh, like them. I think it’s really cool to be able to see professionals play a game you play. You can learn a lot by watching them. I usually see stuff they do and jump into the game to try myself. Sorry esports make you do angry? Maybe just don’t watch them?

Played her on PTR and I really like the way she plays. Back at launch I mainly played Mercy because she was crazy OP. Since the nerfs I’ve leaned more heavily on Moira because I can cope with lone Genji/Tracer attention better with her. But I’ll probably play Brigitte heavily once she’s released. I like the combo of mini-tank (challenging for flankers to murder) with melee healing and homing over-healing.

Haven’t had the chance to play her yet, but seen her played on a couple of streams – she looks like a kind of defensive version of Moira – that shield bash will definitely make harrassers/flankers think twice before engaging. I’m definitely glad I’m not a Genji main!

As a support/tank main, I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on her – she’s definitely going to be interesting to play.

Ditto. I main tank and flex to support. It’s nice to have support that feels a bit more comfortable for a tank. It makes flexing a lot more enjoyable. Ditto for Moria any the Mercy nerf. I’m loving the hybrid classes as they make filling less than ideal comps easier and more fun.